had happened? The annual Super Bowl from last year had been set for the tenth of...shit...He started cursing, barely stopping himself from shouting with his anger. That long... He had missed the conference, Lucian had been left with to deal with the company alone —
Fuck. Just fuck.
Now he knew why Auro and Lyne had wanted him, why he shouldn’t have had sex with Jamie.
Why he should have just killed the twins in the very beginning. He groaned, feeling another onslaught of something. His head started to pound —
Darkness — pain — ragged groans. Surging, pulsing. Hitting, tearing — shredding. Back bowing, a woman wakening beside him. Glaring white light hitting him — redness. So red, crimson like seeping blood. More convulsing, shudders. Helpless female begging —
Agony — like sharp ice — burning crystals of pure torture — Ragged screams. Frozen, gaping mouth — Pulsing light, flashing. A darkness, a hole. The ending — so much pain, so much torment — fear. What was happening? Death — when? The wait — how much?
It felt — like death. Light — turning dark. The woman — fading into the background. So much torture. The end — near.
Chapter 11
Jamie woke to being thrown off the bed. First, she thought they were going to die and then she realized that Talon...was in pain. He was screaming, shouting, clawing at the bed with corded hands. She jumped to her feet, forgetting about the sheet that had been thrown to the floor with her.
“Talon!” she said, grabbing onto his shoulders. He jerked, and a lengthening claw reached out. It caught on her shoulder, almost knocking her away, but the pain was muted with her fear. When his feet shot out, a ragged shout cutting through the room with a snap, jarring her.
She froze.
Talon was glowing. Like a light. Pulsing through the room, from the center of his body, he seemed to rise from the sheets like a ghost. Her ears rang from how loud he was. Desperate, her hands curled into his leg, jerking. He tried kicking her, but she held tight.
“Wake up, damnit!” she screamed, taking a blow to her shoulder with his knee. An inhuman sound roared through the room and then she was thrown away from him. Her back, for maybe the hundredth time, slammed against the wall. Crumpling, gasping in pain, she braced her hands on her knees and started, fighting the helplessness that she was now feeling.
What could she do? The light wasn’t as bright but the sound he was making sounded... tortuous. Her heart stopped at the sound. His body was still naked, but it was graced with a sheen of sweat that glistened in the lights. His jaw was clenched so tight that it seemed as if every muscle in his neck had popped and he was so tightly strung that he didn’t even move as he shouted and became... demonic.
Jamie covered her face with her hands, terrified. What could she do? Nothing? Her mind rebelled — she had to help him.
Suddenly, the room filled with a booming. Like thunder, but on-going.
And then it was dark.
No lights. No sounds. Nothing except her own ragged breathing.
Slowly, her hands dropped from her face. There was no sun light, not even from the outside. It was as if the world, along with the electricity, had shut down. Her eyes struggled to see through the darkness. It was impossible, with how utterly dark it was. A scent filled her nose. It was as if a fog were seeping through the air, and she could smell it.
Her stomach churned. Bile rose in her throat.
It was the scent of death. When she had turned twenty, her life had changed. She knew the scent. Things had become different. Her view on the world had turned around completely, and she had been witness to things that no human being ever should be. Chris had been her distraction, even if that sliver of her life had been almost non-existent, and barely memorable.
“Talon? Hey, where are you?” she asked thinly into the dark, heart thundering in her chest. She put her hands on the floor and tried to search her way through the dark fog, ears straining. She couldn’t hear anything except her own heart. The silence in the room was unsettling, unnatural. Not only had the world paused, but it had stopped completely.
She almost screamed when something latched onto her shoulder -- gently.
“Jamie.” The demonic voice rasped against shoulder with a breath of hot air. A hand clamped over